Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

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Russian Court Dismisses Madonna Lawsuit

You may remember that a few months ago an anti-gay group in Russia filed a lawsuit seeking millions of dollars in damages from Madonna after the singer made comments in favor of gay rights during a concert in that country. A Russian court has now dismissed that lawsuit after an apparently hilarious hearing:

A Russian court on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit that sought millions of dollars in damages from Madonna for allegedly traumatizing minors by speaking up for gay rights during a concert in St. Petersburg.

The ruling came after a one-day hearing that bordered on the farcical. During it, plaintiffs claimed that Madonna’s so-called “propaganda of perversion” would negatively affect Russia’s birthrate and erode the nation’s defense capability by depriving the country of future soldiers. At one point, the judge threatened to expel journalists from the courtroom if they laughed too much…

“Who will children grow up to be if they hear about the equal rights of the lesbian lobby and manly love with traditional sexual relations?” one of the plaintiffs, Darya Dedova, testified Thursday. “The death rate prevails over the birth rate in the West; young guys are becoming gender neutral.”

The plaintiffs submitted evidence about gay culture drawn from Wikipedia pages, claiming that a real encyclopedia could not have articles about homosexuality.

“We aren’t against homosexual people, but we are against the propaganda of perversion among minors,” Dedova told the court. “We want to defend the values of a traditional family, which are currently in crisis in this country. Madonna violated our laws and she should be punished.”

If only journalists would laugh at identical claims being made by American bigots and not report them as something to be taken seriously.

Between Uganda bringing in the death penalty for homosexuality (or failing to turn in homosexuals), Russian and Ukrainian priests trying to get homosexuality banned, Americans being beaten half to death for being lesbian (google for Travis Hawkins Jr. for the link), half the religious people I know trying to raise money for Uganda (because they need more money to buy basic food, shelter, and gay-killing equipment, see?), I’m about to lose faith in humanity.

Um…isn’t the overall population of RUSSIA going down? And wasn’t it going down before Madonna showed up?

Yes. In fact, the US birth rate is higher than the death rate, as is much of Western Europe (Germany is one exception; it does have a low birth rate compared to death rate). The truth is, we brought the death rate down even more than the birth rate, which has led to out-of-control population growth that is putting too much pressure on resources. But maybe that’s just a lie of the gay agenda? ;-)

Many of the former Soviet republics, as well as Russia, are registering population declines, but very few western countries are.

Sorry to temper your optimism, but the report at the Chicago Sun doesn’t mention why the reporters were laughing. Do you really think it was because they were, somehow, in favour of gay rights?

Even if they are, it’s moot. In 5-10 years time, there will be no more free reporters in Russia. And officially, no homosexuals either.

He’s a clever fox, Putin, as you could expect from a former KGB operative, so he’s taking his time to forge alliances with the (orthodox) church and whomever else could help him consolidate his power. But is anybody here in doubt who will be the president of Russia in 2020 (assuming he’s not carried out horizontally between six planks)?

By then, the press will obediently parrot their leadership’s opinion and the filling of the gulags can take off, once more.

As bassackwards and totalitarian as Putin may want Russia to become it is unlikely he will be able to become another Stalin–unless of course he wants to lord it over an apocolyptic post-nuclear armageddon landscape.

Draken, #9:Sorry to temper your optimism, but the report at the Chicago Sun doesn’t mention why the reporters were laughing. Do you really think it was because they were, somehow, in favour of gay rights?

I thought it’s quite clear why Ed thinks the reporters were laughing. He thinks they were laughing because the reasons given for the lawsuit were laughably stupid. I didn’t get the impression that Ed was claiming that the press or any other institution in Russia is actively pro-gay rights.

@Democommie: I wasn’t directly thinking of a Stalin; that would be quite exceptional. But try Khrushchev or Brezhnev; the internal purges may have ended, but the total control and the persecution didn’t. And Putin is a beloved product of that culture.

I love it when I hear about lower birth rates being a problem. The problem is that they aren’t dropping fast enough. Yeah, I know the more reasonable arguments against lower birthrates, they’re still crap.

Zinc Avenger

Russian Journalists laughing at absurdity that journalists wouldn’t dare laugh at in the US.

I’ll repeat it for you one more time. It’s weird what will or won’t be laughed at derisively by whom, and when and where. The mapping is so… fractal.

Whether or not anyone involved is pro-equality (for teh ghey, in this case), it’s good to see the courts and press (full court press, what?) take stupid litigants down a peg. It could go exactly the other way on another case in another court tomorrow, so you cheer for the good calls.

Easy to laugh at the Madonna trial. She’s long since left the country, and a guilty verdict would have been almost impossible to follow-up, so the journalists knew it was OK to laugh at this one.
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I wonder how many of those journalists were at the Pussy Riot trials. I wonder how many protested by laughing when Putin said the girls had undermined the moral foundations of the nation and got what they deserved.
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Hah! O dear fictitious lord that was funny :D I can see why the journalists laughed. “Erode the nations defence capability”?! The phrase “tenuous” doesn’t even cover it. “The death rate prevails over the birth rate in the West”? Are they claiming that homosexuality caused our ageing population? Lol.

Ed, I’m guessing you changed the banner to fit with the new theme? I remember you did a piece on it a few days ago. Looking good but IMHO, it needs some red to go better with the new theme. Perhaps “Dispatches”, “Culture Wars” and the border could be in red? And perhaps the vertical line dividing the title from the subtitle, though that may be a bit much. Or alternatively, “from the”, the border and the vertical line? Just my two pence.